


Almost, But Not Quite, Entirely Unlike Love

by Cherepashka



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Gift Fic, I mean the CANON is canon-divergent, Infinite Improbability Drive, Marvin's got a pain up through all the diodes on his left side, Mostly based on the books, Multi, Why are there so many Vogons, but no one else cares, except maybe a mattress?, with a dash of the radio series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:11:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherepashka/pseuds/Cherepashka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zaphod's bored. Arthur's confused. Improbability abounds. Hijinks ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jabez_dawes (polly_oliver)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/polly_oliver/gifts).



> Promised this to jabez_dawes, um ... fiiiiive years ago? Ouch. But hey, better late than never, right?

__

**PROLOGUE**

_Far out in the charted-in-preparation-for-a-new-hyperspace-bypass-(which-turned-out-to-require-much-more-effort-and-interaction-with-Vogons-than-it-was-worth) backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is—no, was—no,_ **is** — _an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so primitive that they still think planet-wide information networks are a pretty neat idea._

_This planet has—or rather had—or rather_ **has** _a problem, which is this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were concerned with the movement of small plastic cards, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small plastic cards that were unhappy._

_And the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones spending most of their time on the planet-wide information networks._

_A number of the people began to look for solutions that didn’t involve any small plastic cards, and instead involved finding happiness in other people. This was on balance a vastly unreliable and risky proposition, since as mentioned above other people were often either mean or miserable, or too preoccupied with their planet-wide information network personas to pay attention to the people trying to find happiness in them. Nevertheless, the first group, likely in order to stave off complete despair, created and then perpetuated an ideal, an archetype, a universal narrative of the possibility of true happiness between two people: the love story._

_This is not that story._

_It is, however, the story of some toothpicks, the perils of the publishing industry, and two individuals with three heads._

_It is also, and rather tangentially, the story of a book, a book called_ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy _, by all means to be confused with the earth publication of the same name (which rather unfairly confusingly references the original_ Guide _)._

 _It is a wholly remarkable book, perhaps the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor, and a highly successful one. In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy,_ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy _has already supplanted the great_ Encyclopaedia Galactica _as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or more often blatantly made-up, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important ways._

 _First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words_ DON'T PANIC _inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover._

_But the story of these toothpicks, these publishing perils, these superfluously headed people, and this wholly remarkable book begins quite simply. It begins with a start, a pounding headache, and a complete, utter, and horribly permanent lack of tea._


	2. Chapter 2

  
**ONE**  


Arthur Dent awoke with a start, a pounding headache, and a complete, utter, and horribly permanent lack of tea. It must be Thursday, he decided. He never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Then he remembered that the earth had been destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, rendering meaningless any system of timekeeping that took for its reference the rotation of said earth about its axis and its revolution around the sun. There could be no more Thursdays, ever again.

Then he remembered that the earth hadn’t actually been destroyed, and that he had in fact quite recently returned to it and verified that the Horse and Groom and London and Lord’s Cricket Ground were all gloriously intact. This thought cheered him so much that he decided it couldn’t be Thursday after all.

Then he remembered that the earth’s continued existence was due to some incomprehensible babble about plural zones, according to his friend Ford Prefect. (For most of their acquaintance, he had assumed Ford to be a pretty ordinary, if a tad eccentric, human being, but Ford had turned out to be a roving reporter from Betelgeuse for that excellent and soothingly labeled book, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.) Also due to some incomprehensible babble about plural zones was the disappearance of Arthur’s soulmate, Fenchurch, who had completely, utterly, and horribly permanently vanished during a hyperspace hop. This thought depressed Arthur even more than his headache and lack of tea. Yep, he decided, definitely Thursday.

It occurred to him at this point to wonder what precisely had startled him awake and, now that he stopped to think about it, where precisely he was.

*   *   *

Zaphod Beeblebrox was bored. This was never a promising situation, and in fact when he was President of the Galaxy his advisers had hired a series of beautiful females of various species, a small army of event planners, and his own personal traveling circus to prevent exactly this state of affairs. They knew what havoc would be unleashed upon the Galaxy if Zaphod were ever called upon to entertain himself, and wanted to keep any potential havoc firmly in their own hands.

The last time he’d been bored, Zaphod had stolen the Heart of Gold, blasted it on a cross-galactic planet-building adventure, gone up against some hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional mice, and finally fetched up at a restaurant just in time for the end of the universe.

The last time he’d been bored, eleven of his advisers had perished of stress-induced illnesses; twenty-three had fallen victim to interstellar power struggles; and no fewer than forty-two had simply vanished into a wormhole, only to reemerge atop the remains of a whale and a bowl of petunias.

The last time he’d been bored, Zaphod had acted on impulse.

This time was worse.

This time, he started thinking.


	3. Chapter 3

  
**TWO**  


The third moon of the planet Anagraxis, in the Qintarquas IV star system, is a lush, green world, frequently bathed in lush, green light from the rising planet and the single visible sister moon. 

In a lush, green prison, a being of this world languished.

Her name was Z.

Z ap Ho d’be Eb-LeBroya, to be precise. 

Until quite recently, Z had served as a judge in the famed lunar trial courts of the Anagraxian people, but she had been deposed and imprisoned for rendering judgments that were insufficiently amusing because they were too, well, just. The Anagraxians exalted humour above all, aesthetic beauty a close second, and the delicious crinkling sound of crisp packets a strong third. As far as societal values went, justice clocked in at a weak seventy-sixth, only narrowly edging out empathy at seventy-seventh place and the bittersweet melancholy of realizing that crisp packets are always only half full at seventy-eighth. Imprisoning a judge for being too just, it turned out, was ironic enough to make the whole thing quite a humourous affair and thus much better than keeping her in the courts — better, that is, for everyone concerned but Z. 

She gazed morosely out of the lush, green walls of her prison, hoping perhaps that a stray crisp packet might be blown across her field of view. Instead, somewhat to her surprise, she saw lights flashing eerily through the verdant planetlight: a long silver ship was descending quietly through the nitrous air, unfolding long interlocking legs in a smooth dance. 

It alighted gently, and the slight hum it was generating died away. 

A ramp extended itself. 

Light streamed out.

A tall figure appeared silhouetted in the hatchway. It walked down the ramp and stood before Z’s cell, looking at her through the gaps in the lush, green walls.

'You’re a frood, Z,' it said simply.

It was not, Z knew, a creature of this world, where the inhabitants tended to compactness and noisy mirth. This being had a peculiar alien tallness, a peculiar alien too-smooth voice, and peculiar alien slitted scent receptors. Its gray-green skin had a lustrous sheen that most gray-green races can only achieve through lots of exercise and very expensive moisturizers. It looked like it had never tasted anything so vulgar as a crisp in its whole existence. 

'What?' croaked Z.

The being did something with its face that, had Z been more familiar with its peculiar alien physiognomy, she would have recognized as a frown. 'You are Z?'

She nodded.

'Z ap Ho d’be Eb-LeBroya?'

'Yes,” she whispered.

'You’re a froody lady. A real cool frood. You’re a gift to the galaxy.' 

The alien turned around and swept gracefully back up the ramp, through the hatchway, and into his ship. The ramp retracted smoothly behind him with a low hum, the hatchway doors closed, the ship’s interlocking legs re-folded themselves with silent precision, and the ship began to flash its lights and rise slowly from the lush, green ground.

Z watched it go, ears rising slightly in unexpected gratification. She might not be funny enough or aesthetically pleasing enough or crisp packet-like enough to keep her seat on the judge’s bench, but someone out there thought she was a frood. A gift to the galaxy. She could live with that.

*   *   *

The gray-green alien settled back into the plush chair on the bridge of his spaceship. Regular readers of the _Guide_ will likely have recognized him as the being known as Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. 

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was immortal. 

This in itself was not particularly unusual; the galaxy is actually swarming with immortal beings, despite how rarely they reproduce, because once they’re born none of them can ever be gotten rid of. Most of them tend to avoid meddling much, preferring to confine themselves to the hyperdimensional realities where they laugh without being overheard about all the ways the rest of us can get killed. 

Wowbagger was different, possibly unique, in that he had not been born immortal, but had rather become so through a freak accident involving a few rubber bands, a liquid lunch, and a particle accelerator. As a result, he lacked the built-in, philosophical imperturbability of most naturally occurring immortal species. He had spent the first several centuries of his newfound immortality living it up, traveling to as many exotic systems as he could in search of thrills and really fantastic sex, and cleaning up on long-term investments. As he began to outlive most of his acquaintances and nearly all of his erstwhile pleasures, he started spending his time figuring out how to die. He attempted several times to recreate the circumstances that led to his own immortality, except in reverse, which while it did not manage to kill him did end up causing the deaths of several others in the vicinity. Wowbagger considered this a cruel joke on the part of the universe. 

There followed a period of intense boredom, especially on Sunday afternoons. It was the boredom that led him, simply for the sake of filling time, to adopt a long-term project: insulting the universe. And since an ever-expanding continuum of indifferent spacetime is very difficult to insult in a meaningful way, Wowbagger’s method of insulting the universe was to insult every single living being in it. One at a time. Personally. 

In — and this was the stroke of brilliance — alphabetical order. 

Never mind that the distances involved and the constant changes in universal population made this a functionally impossible endeavor. Wowbagger had, quite literally, all the time in the world. 

He had gotten most of the way through the 'Arth–' block of the alphabet when his shipboard computer, which was also his immortality therapist, suggested gently that all the negativity might not be quite healthy. Wowbagger told it that the concept of 'health' had no meaning for a being who couldn’t die. The computer clarified that it was not asking him to abandon his project of insulting the universe, merely that he might enjoy varying the constant barrage of insults with slightly more positive interactions. After all, the universe could be cruel, but it could also be quite beautiful, and boredom could be alleviated by contributing to both aspects rather than just the first. 

Wowbagger contemplated this suggestion without further discussion through the next two insults, and then announced that he would undertake a second project, to be carried out simultaneously with his current one: He would personally compliment every single living being in the universe. He would alternate, one compliment for every insult. And he would issue the compliments in — and this was the real kicker — _reverse_ alphabetical order. 

It only took him the billion-year rise and fall of two galactic civilizations to make it most of the way through the Z’s. 

Lifting off from the lush, green surface of the third moon of the planet Anagraxis, in the Qintarquas IV star system, Wowbagger asked his shipboard computer, 'Where next?'

'You next insult is in the Korquellus system, a sentient bacterium that has published poetry under the pen name _ar thurphi lipdeoaa_. I believe you had planned to call it a noxious scum-bucket. Following that, you, have a compliment scheduled aboard a ship that is currently materialized above the surface of Eroticon VI.' The computer paused. 'Both will entail fairly long journeys.'

'Any movies I haven't already watched a million times?'

'There is the forty-eighth episode of the six hundred and fifty-fifth season of "The Great Galactic Bake-Off." You have only watched that 1.375 million times.'

Wowbagger considered. 'Good enough.' The theme music cued, and the ship accelerated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Not completely, anyway. Gradually updating this and other fics.


End file.
